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(Dis)Counting unemployment

Domestic job scarcity is now at its worst under the Aquino administration (Photo from pinoy-ofw.com)

When the Social Weather Stations (SWS) released its survey showing that the Aquino administration continues to enjoy a very good net satisfaction rating of 56%, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda had this to say:

“This recent measurement of public opinion indicates that the public not only sees, but has tangibly felt, the government’s efforts to improve services, push for inclusive growth, and upgrade response to disasters. It contradicts the hypercritical few who refuse to see the government doing its work, under the indivisible view that justice and expanding the economy must be jointly pursued.”

But when the same survey group disclosed that unemployment in the country has worsened to 24%, Malacañang sang a different tune. Disputing the survey, Lacierda said: “We have 54,000 respondents… In fact, based on our figures for 2011, the unemployment figures went down.”

President Aquino himself questioned the SWS survey on unemployment. “What was shown to me in general is… there is a .4 percent reduction, from 7.4 to 7 percent, that’s our unemployment figure. (This) seems to belie the SWS survey. I think they cannot be both, they are opposites, they cannot be both true at the same time.”

Lacierda and the President are citing the official Labor Force Survey (LFS) that the National Statistics Office (NSO) conducts every quarter.

But can SWS be both right and wrong at the same time? This seems to be the logic of Malacañang after claiming that the SWS survey on net satisfaction validated the good performance of government while rejecting the same group’s report that unemployment is deteriorating. Note that both results were generated from the same Dec. 3-7, 2011 survey of the SWS covering 1,200 respondents nationwide.

SWS survey shows that there about 9.7 million jobless workers as of December 2011, or almost four times the official unemployment data of about 2.6 million as of October 2011. This wide discrepancy in the number of unemployed is explained by the problematic methodology being used by the National Statistics Office (NSO) in measuring unemployment. As I have pointed out in a previous post:

“NSO jobs figures have long been unreliable for distorting the concept of unemployment and statistically deflating the extent of job scarcity in the country. For instance, the NSO does not count as unemployed those who are seeking work but for one reason or another (e.g. school or family obligations, illness, etc.) will be unavailable for work despite an opportunity within two weeks after the survey. Meanwhile, household members, who help operate the small family farm, sari-sari store, or eatery, are considered employed, including those who helped for even just one hour in the past week before the NSO survey.”

Until 2004, SWS unemployment survey (which started in 1993) tracked the official jobless rate. However, the data sharply diverged from each other beginning in 2005 when the NSO changed its definition of employment. (See Chart 1)

The new definition of unemployment that the NSO started using in its April 2005 LFS round excluded discouraged workers and those not willing or available for work from the labor force. (The redefinition is contained in Resolution No. 15 passed by the National Statistical Coordination Board or NSCB in 2004. You may access the said resolution here.)

This redefinition, which further distorted the already problematic old official definition of employment, had the net effect of further statistically reducing the number of unemployed. In 2007, the year the NSO last provided comparative data on employment figures based on its old and new definitions, the LFS showed only an annual unemployment average of 2.6 million workers under the new definition, or around 1.4 million less than the unemployment average using the old definition.

When the NSO adopted the new definition in 2005 and stopped releasing unemployment figures based on the old definition in 2007, it effectively discouraged the comparison of long-term annual averages in the country’s unemployment. Prior to the redefinition of employment in 2005, official NSO data on joblessness showed a steady deterioration of the domestic labor market starting in the mid-1970s. (See Chart 2)

Annual averages in official unemployment rate under the old definition progressively climbed up from 5.1% in the 1970s to 7.1% in the 1980s; 9.5% in the 1990s; and 11.3% from 2000 to 2006 (figures based on the old definition are available until 2006). Under the new definition, official unemployment has averaged 7.3% (2007 to 2011). This has serious policy making implications because the change in definition suddenly erased the historical trend of worsening joblessness and how the domestic economy has failed to produce jobs due to defective programs implemented by administrations in the past 40 years.

Fortunately, we can still rely on the SWS survey to see how unemployment has moved since the second half of the 2000s. Using SWS data, unemployment is now at its worst under the Aquino administration which posted an average of 23% (2010 to 2011) as compared to Arroyo’s 19.6% (2001 to 2009); Erap’s 9.2% (1998 to 2000); and Ramos’s 10.3% (1993 to 1997). (See Chart 3)

To be sure, the Aquino presidency has just started and it could certainly argue that it still has until 2016 to reverse the worsening jobs crisis in the country. But looking at the administration’s development blueprint gives no hope that unemployment will improve soon. (Read here, here, and here) Worse, Aquino is not only continuing the flawed programs of Gloria Arroyo, but like his predecessor, is also resorting to statistical distortion to hide job scarcity and conceal his lack of long-term job creation program. #